That Touch of Mink (1962)
The couple seems just a shade too opposite to truly attract. Doris Day is perfectly willing (or willing enough) to sustain several trips to Brighton. Cary Grant is cad enough to pull them off. But a psychosomatic rash foils his plans.
Now, I love Cary Grant and have an enormous soft spot in my heart for the delectable Miss Day but this movie (since I became old enough to fathom it) is kind of a creepy little kernel of sleaze wrapped around a marshmallow cloud.
Pay particular attention to the smallish part of Beasley (her would-be seducer) and their trip to Asbury Park--a town I can't think of without remembering seedy hotels and delivery vans.
Only By Chance has the orphany-y-est orphan ever. One of my favorite orphan movies is:
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
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| Tony, I sense a rich Dutch doctor! And he's headed my way! |
Tony and Tia aren't just orphans. They live in an orphanage. And they're aliens. You can't get much more orphan-y than that. Come for the cute kids, stay for Ray Milland looking just the teeniest bit like Darth Vader with his helmet off...
I liked the book too.
I loved this movie until I was old enough to understand it then it became, while not creepy, a bit tacky. I still love the scene where he splashes her at the curb--has a bit of Neels about it. John Astin is, however, a riot--would make a great houseman.
ReplyDeleteI was named after the girl in Return to Witch Mountain. It makes the entire movie worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteI like to think that "That Touch of Mink," was poking fun at the changing mores of society. After all, they didn't DO anything - her spots, much to the playboy's chagrin, kept them from that. Kind of a visible conscience. Everyone around them was judging their behavior - his staff, her friends, the friend's shrink - everyone thought the worst. Of him, as the Great Seducer of the Innocent.
ReplyDeleteJohn Astin is fantastically awful as the sleazeball.
Mrs Neels, btw, as reflects her times, probably, especially if she came from an upper crust family, gives her RDDs a pass on having mistresses (however nicely she avoids calling them that.) The only saving grace for the RDDs is that they never set out to make off to Brighton with the heroine.
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Betty Cindy -- I'd be surprised if The Great Betty had it in her head that any RDD was holidaying in Brighton with any particular Veronica. Now, as to how much time any RDD had ever spent in Brighton - that's debatable. Possibly she thought none at all (what's good for the goose, etc.), or possibly she thought there's been, shall we say, a short trip to Brighton while at University...? But nothing more recent than that. As Betty JoDee can explain far more densely than I, all RDDs have well-banked passions and iron-control over those fires...
ReplyDeletePlus, I've never gotten the impression that the heroine, when faced with Mies or Nerissa, was expected by the RDD to greet his . . . uh, former Brighton roommate. Ever. Even when he's engaged to her, he's not gone to see the Brighton Pavilion with her!
As for The Great Betty herself, I'm certain that she was upper middle class: her father was a Civil Servant, which is a rather classier job title than our own state and municipal employees. I surmise that there was a hitch in the family fortunes, either through death or her father's remarriage to a hateful stepmum who snaffled dad's pension for herself, because The Great Betty really did work for her living for 30 years...
I'm trying to remember but the only time I ever remember thinking that the RDD did any fooling around was maybe in Caroline's Waterloo (if I recall correctly) when he tells her he's no monk.
ReplyDeleteI think that particular phrase referring to a lack of monk-ishness is used in at least a couple of books, but I can't quite bring them to mind.
ReplyDeleteExactly - there are references to the RDDs having ...LIVED. ;-)
ReplyDeleteNo monk indeed. And there are a few references to joint vacations with Veronicas. Real ones, not imagined ones by nasty women to upset the pure heroine.
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One of the classic lines is from his grandmother in The Gemel Ring: "He's no monk, Charity Dawson!" TMI from someone else's grandma.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think we can make the assumption that there were not trips to Brighton with some of the Veronicas fairly early point in the relationships--just that the Veronicas knew the score.